Slashdot Mirror
Mac OS X Version of Lotus Notes 6
NadizPicR writes "Lotus released the first Mac OS X beta for its Notes Domino messaging and collaboration system client. Version 6.0b1 also features improved toolbar handling. I just downloaded and installed it, and it seems to be an excellent implementation." Do people still use Lotus Notes? Honestly?
Lotus released the first Mac OS X beta for its Notes Domino messaging and collaboration system client.
Should read: IBM released the first Mac OS X beta for its Notes Domino messaging and collaboration system client.
Do people still use Lotus Notes?
The client I am currently at does use Lotus Notes. The email client has to be the worst that I have ever used. It is so bad that I am wishing for Microsoft Outlook.
Does anyone have any screenshots?
This is pretty exciting since, with MS Office, it makes the mac a pretty viable alternative in the non-creative workplace. I worked as a designer and it was always immensely frustrating to either have to also use a PC, or simply be excluded from some enterprise apps and productivity tools.
I noticed though that there is no Domino Server for OS X. pity. A Dual G4 domino server (with Gigabit ethernet of course) would kick serious butt and would make an all mac office a distinct possibility.
I dream of a day when Oracle server runs on OS X and Apple has an easy to use data access framework a la ADO.net (with Postgres support): Rack mounted OS X application & database servers.
Oh my god, somebody get me a towel.
-a
"The plural of anecdote is not data." -- Roger Brinner
IBM uses Notes for it's inter-office email, calendar, databases, etc. In a word, it sucks.
_sig_ is away
The company that work for used to run Exchange 5.5 with Outlook 98/2000. It was an adminstrators dream. Everything just worked. Then, we got bought out, and our parent company told us to switch to Lotus Notes, which is what they use. WE HATE IT! Roaming users don't really exist in Notes. A name change involves us to go to the machine itself and change many settings. It also kills any computer that doesnt have more than 64MB of RAM. Lotus Notes blows. It's sad to see such a crapy program corrupt such a beautiful OS.
I was hoping to migrate to OSX *because* it didn't have Lotus Notes. So much for that idea.
I've been using this client for about 2 weeks since it was released, and aside from a few small crashes, it's been running solid. The main problem is that when it freezes and you kill it, you have to reboot your Mac in order for it's database to be unlocked, (or i haven't figured out what else to do), which is kinda dumb, this being BSD.
The aqua interface isn't too aqua - it's mainly a wrapper around the R5 design with the exception of the dialogues, but all in all is just as easy to use.
Do people still use Lotus Notes? Honestly?
/. flamebait. Notes has a huge installed base in big financial institutions and other sectors where security and IBM are important. My employer, with over 10,000 staff, is currently migrating everyone to Notes from a mix of mainframe mail and POP3. 2000 users are to be migrated this weekend.
This is just
Now, I'm a Free Software bigot, so I hate Notes for being proprietary. And I hate the odd GUI for being... well, odd and buggy. But Notes has no real competition in terms of features and security. It's also impressively cross platform (on the server side, anyway).
It's really in a class of it's own. Of course it's still used.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
True dat - someday I'm going to figure out why Novell is determined not to have anything useful on any other platform but Windows. Yes, it's great that you can incorporate Linux/Solaris/NT boxes into the NDS - we do that at The Day Job (well, the NT part anyway - we haven't had the guys to try the Linux side).
But why can't we have some more *client* options from Novell? Where's the OS X Groupwise client? Or the Linux X-Windows Groupwise client? There's basic ConsoleOne support for Linux, but hardly the level for Win32 based systems.
Novell - please, I love NDS, but buy a fucking clue and get some clients on those "other" operating systems - you know, the ones *not* made by your #1 competitor. (Yes, Novell. Microsoft.)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Ever hear of a company called IBM, you know, the one that owns Lotus? Do you think that they would allow people to use MS products like Outlook or Exchange?
Think about it.
People seem to think that no one uses Lotus Notes/Domino these days. I think I remember seeing some numbers presented on Lotus Sphere '02 where thay claimed to have ~51% of the market for groupware products in Europe. I can't find that data right now. But I searched for Lotus Domino at InfoTech Trends. The script returned the following forecast number of seats for Q4 2000 (you have to pay for information newer than that):
00Q4 - Forecast number of seats for groupware/messaging, by program.
Seats (mil)
Software 1998 1999 2000
Lotus Domino 34 55 65
Microsoft Exchange 24 44 58
Total 58 99 123
Unix based solutions obviously isn't included in this survey. But I think it clearly shows that Notes/Domino has a quite large market share.
The URL should have been http://www.infotechtrends.com/freedemo.htm
I used lotus notes on my school. Its buggy, slow, but no Microsoft security flaws.
3M
Accenture
Arthur Andersen
BASF
Bayer
CIA
Chevron Texaco
Countrywide
DiamlerChrysler
Eastman Kodak
Eli Lilly
ExxonMobil
General Motors
GlaxoSmithKline
Hewitt Associates
IBM
JP Morgan
Mars
MasterCard International
Nationwide
Philips International
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Procter & Gamble
Prudential
Rockwell
Coke
World Bank
I could go on, but I'm tired of typing.
Look for something called "nsd.sh". It was there on the normal *nix client installs. Some hidden functions in there to attach to all the processes and kill them.
But, basically grep for processes that start with the letter "n". You'll see the list that you need to kill.
It happens because Notes is pretty well multi-threaded, so long as we're not talking UI. Outside the UI, it rocks. Inside the UI, some things are still a little too linked.
It does run on Linux
and NT/Windows 2000
AS/400
AS/390
HPUX
AIX
Solaris
and probably some others. that's just the operating systems I've dealt with.
First, use Web Mail in Notes. The 5.0.8 server came with iNotes, which is a pretty decent web client. Includes calendar. Light-years ahead of Microsoft's crap.
As for roaming users, there's a reason they don't roam under Notes. The Lotus Notes ID file, which is analogous to your PGP private key, is needed to log in. Exchange relies upon NT authentication, which is exactly why groups like the CIA won't touch it.
In Notes, the server can be given permission to put things into your mail file, and nothing beyond that. The user -- the one with the correct ID file (and the password to it), is the only one that can open that mail file.
Try that with exchange, or any other mail program.
Back when Lotus was thinking about version 4.6, they decided not to release a Mac version. At the time, Apple was sinking fast, and looked like it was going to go bankrupt. Apple recovered, and Lotus responded with verion 5 (aka "R5") for the Mac platform.
Version 4.6.7 was the last client version for any *nix platform. The server version ("Domino") still exists, and has strong support and market share. The client disappeared for several reasons:
* declining market share* no standard unix GUI
* lack of things like OLE automation
There is no server version for BSD, but now that the client has been ported to OS X, it may be on the horizon. It's all about market share.
If you wish to run Notes under WINE, look here and here for instructions.
IBM shops often use notes, since they already depend on IBM as a vendor. I know Kaiser-Permanente, the HMO, just recently swtiched from MS Exchange (A.K.A. Mmm... sex change...) and Outlook over to Lotus Notes after weathering one too many email viruses. KP uses DB2 on RS6000s running AIX.
Washington Mutual probably uses Notes too. I know they're an IBM customer. At the branch in Cheney you could see the S/390 behind the counter. If you get a look at the screen of a loan officer's PC, it's not running Windows but OS/2. From what I understand, the banks buy the AS400s and get OS/2 thrown in for free.
Casinos are another safe bet, if you want a job working with IBM iron and Notes. The new ones being run by native americans seem to prefer NT/2000, but the "old" corporate-run casinos of Las Vegas mostly use AS/400s for their accounting.
The Associated Press (AP) used to be all-IBM too. All the turnkey systems they used to sell newspapers ran nothing but OS/2, but last year they made a big promotion about they're new commitment to Windows 2000, and shortly after that all our AP systems were replaced by IBM PCs with W2K. They may still may be a place to look if you're looking for a Notes sysadmin position.
Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy. Pick any two.
Is that the guy from "The Usual Suspects"? If so, I'm switching over too. That guy is scary.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
I certainly hope it has the same well-crafted and intuitive interface I came to know and love last time I worked for a company that used Notes.
*cough*
--saint
Amazed at the number of people who use an old version of something, and then condemn the software forever after.
Old Lotus Notes matched the funky UI of other Lotus Products, like Smart Suite, which got to market before MS Office.
It's nice to have an OS X native Notes, but what I really need is Domino Designer.
I have a question for those of you familiar with Notes.
Our company is talking about migrating to Lotus Notes, and I'm running Mac OS X. Will I still be able to use Entourage as my email client? I expect I won't be able to access the applications without the Notes client, but is regular POP3 mail typically available?
What exactly is Notes anyway? Is it a proprietary email and calendar system, like the old cc:Mail + some sort of calendar function?
Thanks!
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Everone at IBM uses Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes is the primary email program used internally at IBM. Also, some of the old mainframe-based applications are being migrated to Notes. Having Notes run natively on Mac OS X is therefore a great thing for IBMers who use Macs.
My girlfriend uses Notes for her job. Her Win2000 laptop is kak, so when I got my iMac a week ago, I tried to set it up so that she could read her email using the OS X Mail client. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out where the Notes client stored its mail settings (POP3 and SMTP), so I couldn't copy the server values.
Anybody know where to find these values in the Notes client?
Cheers,
dubs.
I have always considered the best feature of Mac OS X to be the lack of support for Notes/Domino, coming in well higher on the list than the robust Unix underpinnings, elegant interface, etc. I simply cannot exaggerate my dislike for Notes/Domino. I had a CS degree and had done some C development professionally, but no web app development when I accepted the Notes/Domino development position. I swear, if I had not discovered Linux+Apache+MySQL+PHP with some codeplay on my own time, it would have taken YEARS for me to have grasped the coherent flow of a web application. Domino with its "agents" (which won't handle dynamically generated fields), @formula, and document-based DB model is the most obfuscated example of the web app development model that I could posibly imagine in my widlest and most esoteric musings. It is with great trepidation that I witness the ushering in of this foul beast, borne of the minds of a band of seething madmen from Lotus. And Notes as a e-mail/PIM client sucks as well. It made it into a special in-depth section of the Interface Hall of Shame: http://www.iarchitect.com/lotus.htm It is a dark day for OS X indeed. blakespot -- iPodHacks.com
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
This is just /. flamebait.
That's hardly a fair conclusion. I wondered the same thing: who the hell uses Lotus Notes? Anybody that hasn't worked with a Big Co. (ie, me and pudge, I imagine) wouldn't know what you so kindly explained. I haven't encountered a single computer running Lotus Notes, nor have I heard mention on-line or off-, in..ohhhh...ever, actually.
While we're on the topic, what about Novell? Does anybody use that anymore?
-Waldo Jaquith
I read so many things, and since I'm contract at a customer site, there's endless rules about what information I'm allowed access to, and what information I can't have access to. Some of the Gartner stuff is classified, and some wasn't, and still other Gartner stuff I've read on news sites -- so I have no idea where I read it.
File...Mobile...Edit Current Location. The mail server should be listed there.
Alternate way to find same thing. Bottom right of Notes it says something like "Office" or "Home". Click that, then click "Edit Current".
Finally, it's stored in the notes.ini file, which on a Mac will be -- I dunno where. Wherever the preferences folder has been moved. A line "MailServer=" will be in there.
Just thought of one more. With mail file open, go to File...Database...Properties. In the dialog that appears it should list the server on one of the tabs. If the top of that pop-up says "Document" or "Text" instead of "Database", click on that uppermost-left word and change it to Database.
I hope Notes for OS X is better than R5 for the Classic Mac OS. I have to use that dreck at one of my client sites, and until I did, I never thought I'd find Outlook/Exchange superior to *anything*.
Talk about the most half-assed port of an app that I've ever seen... what's with the hundreds of 8.3-named files scattered in the Lotus Notes directory? And the user interface sucks terribly, they have done incredibly brain-dead things with the web-browser metaphor.
~Philly
I'm a DBA for Andersen (save the jokes) and we are the largest install base of Lotus Notes in the world ~80,000 users. If things don't go right for us, IBM will loose it's biggest customer.
Do people still use Lotus Notes? Honestly?
I frigging hope so I'm a Domino Admin looking for work.
anylou...
While Exchange folks get two days off everytime some douche' cracker dope gets a day off from school Domino Admins go to work not really giving a flying fuck about the latest Outlook Virus b/c we have this little thing call the ECL which translates to security.
I'll admit it though... Developing for Notes is the least intuitive, most ass backwards way to accomplish anything I have ever experienced.
This
Bayer has about 120,000.
DaimlerChrysler about 140,000
General Motors about 130,000
JP Morgan about 120,000
Philips about 100,000
PriceWaterhouseCoopers about 150,000
and IBM has somewhere between 250,000 and 300,000
You're not the largest by a by a longshot. But maybe in Andersen's accounting methods, 80,000 is larger than the rest.
*Flamebait*?
Thank God for metamoderation.
-Waldo Jaquith
...a beowulf cluster of machines...dropped from the top of a building...onto the heads of the team that created Lotus Notes?
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
I got this from a Lotus site, so take it for what it's worth.
* NOTES AND DOMINO
* Eighteen of the world's 20 largest pharmaceutical companies use Lotus Notes and Domino to move information quickly and safely through massive organizations, including the US FDA.
* Four of the top five national newspapers in the US use a Lotus Notes and Domino based solution to reliably put out up-to-the moment breaking news while increasing the efficiency of business operations and allowing them to publish via the Web.
* 100% of US Money-center banks use Lotus Notes and Domino because they provide the most stable and secure platforms for sharing massive amounts of highly confidential information and easily develop custom Web-enabled applications.
* 90% of the top insurance companies depend on Lotus Notes and Domino to securely share highly confidential information among employees and medical care providers, while providing customers with faster claims processing.
* 10 out of 12 of the world's largest car makers use Lotus.
* 87 of Fortune 100 companies run their businesses on Notes and Domino.
* 80% of All Management Consulting Firms use Lotus Notes.
* Lotus is the uncontested leader in a "two-horse race," with almost 40% market share in this space (compared with 29% for Exchange)
* In terms of installed base, Notes stands at 55.3 million seats and Exchange is at 44.2 million.
* In terms of 1999 sales, Notes had an increase of almost 22 million while Exchange grew by less than 20 million.
* During Q499 alone, Notes grew by 8.5 million seats (15 percent), while Exchange only grew by 5.5 million seats.
I figured since many people here are anti-Microsoft, most would be praising any company using Notes/Domino over Outlook/Exchange. You just cannot win with this crowd.